Where does the Orioles catcher Mercedes (that we picked in the Rule 5) fit into our plans? Minor league fodder?

__________________It breaks your heart. It is designed to break your heart. The game begins in the spring, when everything else begins again, and it blossoms in the summer, filling the afternoons and evenings, and then as soon as the chill rains come, it stops and leaves you to face the fall alone. - A. Bartlett Giamatti

He can hit. He has a good caught stealing ratio. But I see a lot of passed balls. The fact that he hit in the Dominican for Washington but was let go by them anyhow makes me curious if there was a problem.

The fact that he is a 24 year old catcher just now reaching AA isn't as big a deal as it would be for a different position. But I'm guessing he is just organizational filler.

__________________The universe is the practical joke of the General at the expense of the Particular, quoth Frater Perdurabo, and laughed. The disciples nearest him wept, seeing the Universal Sorrow. Others laughed, seeing the Universal Joke. Others wept. Others laughed. Others wept because they couldn't see the Joke, and others laughed lest they should be thought not to see the Joke. But though FRATER laughed openly, he wept secretly; and really he neither laughed nor wept. Nor did he mean what he said.

Definitely a logjam and that makes a lot of sense. However, I think it is entirely possible that Robert opens in Winston-Salem which throws a wrench into the works. Call then stays in Kannapolis most likely. It's also possible that Booker is the one that heads to AA while Fisher DH's in A+. Otherwise that matches what has been my take on the situation.

He's on the top 10 catcher list for MLBPipeline. You need to be more patient with catchers as they tend to develop more slowly. Chance Sisco hit a major speed bump last year, which toppled him from a top 50 prospect to outside the top 100 this season. It happens....

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March 16, 2005 - Another happy Sox fan joins the party!
July 6, 2012 - 7 years later he's still part of it...

I'm trying to think critically about the claim that the White Sox should be good in 2020 - 2021. What is the basis for this common belief?

From what I can tell, the Sox have seven starting pitchers who have a chance of being both (a) good in 2020 - 2021, and (b) on the White Sox starting roster in 2020 - 2021. These seven guys are Kopech, Hansen, Dunning, Giolito, Lopez, Fullmer, and Rodon. The White Sox need about 3-4 of these guys to work out and form the core of a starting rotation. That's not an outlandish proposition.

The case for the 2020 Sox being good looks much weaker when you look at position players.

Moncada, Eloy, and Robert are widely believed to have strong MLB futures. That is a third of a lineup. The Sox have a gazillion A-ball outfield prospects, and it seems not outlandish that one of them will be good enough to prowl Left Field alongside Eloy and Robert.

Tim Anderson could be a defense-first, 9th-hole shortstop serviceable at the major league level. He could be a guy who provides some magic if he has a career year that coincides with a playoff run. He could also be washed out of MLB entirely by 2020. I guess Yolmer falls into a similar category. Yolmer could be a Juan Uribe type player.

It is far from clear that the 2020 Sox will have good players at catcher, first base, third base, shortstop, or DH. Collins seems to be in decline and, well, I don't have to provide the pessimism about Burger, others are providing plenty of that.

__________________"Hope...may be indulged in by those who have abundant resources...but its nature is to be extravagant, and those who go so far as to stake their all upon the venture see it in its true colors only when they are ruined."-- Thucydides